Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Tony Abbott’s New Ministry Announced: South Australian Simon Birmingham to Enforce Corrupt Basin Plan

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PRIME Minister-elect Tony Abbott today announced his new Ministry [1]. There were few surprises. Again a South Australian will be responsible for water. Indeed Simon Birmingham as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, has been given special responsibility for water. Simon Birmingham

It all suggests that this Abbott government will follow a long tradition of enforcing corrupt water politics and policies for the Murray Darling.

Mr Birmingham has already put out a press release detailing how he will enforce the Basin Plan.

This $10 billion taxpayer-funded Basin Plan will redistribute about 1/3 of all the water currently used to grow food in the Murray Darling and channel it down to a vast perched artificially fresh near coastal lake to evaporate. While ostensibly for some environmental benefit, the reality is that this lake was created through the damming of the Murray River’s estuary. The ecology of Lake Alexandrina has been ruined by the pest European carp. The surrounding land is predominately cropped farmland with revegetation efforts thwarted by rabbits, and then there are the new housing estates and marina developments.

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1] Click here to read Tony Abbott’s media release…
https://lnp.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/13-09-16-A-Team-to-Build-a-Stronger-Australia.pdf

To see the complete Ministry, click here…
https://lnp.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/The-Ministry.pdf

Reader Interactions

Comments

  4. BethCooper says

    Jen, I well remember in the drought of 2008, the concerted campaign by the
    Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists to save the Murray and Lower Lakes
    from ecological disaster. A lot of the public, me included, I’d say, were persuaded
    at the time, bein’ short on historical and biographical contexts.(
    bts

  5. Avatar photojennifer says

    Thanks Beth. Yes, our ABC showed pictures of Lake Alexandrina drying up… but failed to also show the 7.6 kilometres of sea dyke holding back the Southern Ocean.

  6. hunter says

    Jennifer, your work on the Murray Darling estuary is magnificent, even if the self-proclaimed enviros are doggedly hanging on to destroy the river. It is so ironic that a bureaucracy claiming to act on such enlightened environmental motives is creating an Australian version of the late Aral Sea.
    Keep up the good work. My bet is you will live to see the barrages breached and the Murray Darling allowed to start its recovery.

  8. Alan Herath says

    Actually the Plan will not ” save” the Lower Lakes. The public perception of the Plan generated by supportive politicians is based on statements along the lines that the Plan will ensure that in the future, a severe drought will not cause the Lakes to dry up as they did in the millenium drought. While River Murray water quality and flow will be increased under post-Plan average flow conditions and perhaps during the initial onset of a drought, the available water in the Basin including the River Murray storages is drawn down for various uses in dry seasons and is then restricted among the various uses when the remaining available stored water is quite low as a drought develops and intensifies.
    In a severe drought like we recently experienced all storages including the Lower Lakes would end up in a similar situation as occured last time.
    The simplest but most costly away around this would be to build a whopping great desalination plant on the east coast of Australia and in 300 years time or whenever the next big drought occurs – pump desalinated seawater over great divide into the headworks of the River Murray system. A number of State govts have recently copied this obviously ridiculous suggested approach for their capital city water supplies at major opportunity cost to other more deserving expenditure priorities .